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Nikola CEO Trevor Milton Resigns

50 points by heshiebee 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bagels 6y ago
Might be related to the possible SEC investigation. I didn't have the patience to find out if the reason was hiding in this release. https://www.engadget.com/nikola-ev-short-selling-012546201.html https://www.engadget.com/nikola-ev-short-selling-012546201.h...
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Sounds like rats abandoning ship to me; he must've made a ton of money off of the IPO.
djrobstep 6y ago
I look forward to the day that Elon "one million robotaxis" Musk gets a similar level of scrutiny.
- KiwiJohnno 6y ago
  Musk definitely overpromises and doesn't deliver on time... But he usually does deliver what he said, just years late.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- agumonkey 6y ago
  Musk left the vaporware club long ago. Not saying he's babbling a lot and may still be guilty of lying to investors in the future.. but right now the data says otherwise.
- jp0d 6y ago
  Come on mate. He is at least a proper engineer. He builds stuff himself. No project gets delivered exactly on the promised date. There is always a delay. That's normal. I'm a petrol head (read idiot) and I don't like Tesla cars. But I'm fascinated with engineering and I do appreciate Elon Musk. He is bloody awesome.
  - djrobstep 6y ago
    - One million robotaxis - "Full self drive" - Neuralink - Solar roof (totally faked demo) It's all there if you look past the personality cult.
    - KiwiJohnno 6y ago
      - Founded three different multi-billion $ companies - Created market for practical, affordable electric cars - First successful car company listed on the stock exchange since Ford - Founded most valuable car company in the world - Made model S, model 3 which have 98% customer satisfaction - Produced cars on the cutting edge of automation technology (no, not really self-drive, but still market leading) - Has manufactured 800k + cars - First private company to launch a spacecraft into orbit and return it to earth - First (and only) company to carry humans into orbit and return to earth - Developed re-usable rockets - Developed and flew the first full-flow staged combustion engine. Is Musk perfect? No. But, he has achieved an amazing amount. Calling him a "fraud" or putting him in the same category as Trevor Milton is clearly dishonest. He is extremely polarizing, yes... And the cult around him is... Distasteful. But if you don't respect what he has achieved, then just what would it take?
    - jp0d 6y ago
      @djrobstep mate, be realistic and give credit where credit's due! @KiwiJohnno Nice one! :D
    - nickik 6y ago
      Robotaxi and Self Driving are basically the same thing. Yes, he is overly optimistic on that. What about Neuralink? Nobody ever said it was a product that you could buy. They are clearly working on it. What your issue? The Solar roof wasn't fake. They just realized they couldn't scale fast it and had to do more validation testing to prove that it could last 30 years. They are now delivering a pretty large numbers of them. He said in 2015 that they will deliver 500k vehicles in 2020 and it looks like they might hit that. That is an insane growth. The Shanghai factory has been a model vehicle manufacturing program. The Model Y was delivered perfectly on time. Berlin and Austin seem to be going great. There is absolutely nothing to complain about as a shareholder since they overestimated how fast they could scale Model 3, the execution the last 2 years has been brilliant. And we want even start talking about SpaceX one of the most amazing companies in the world. If at this point you still have an issue with Musk other then that you personally don't like him, its really a you problem.
PhantomGremlin 6y ago
Sigh. Currently this submission is titled: Nikola CEO Trevor Milton Resigns This title violates the HN guideline that says: please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. Okay, so lots of submissions violate that guideline. But in this case the changed title is simply wrong! Trevor Milton was NOT the CEO. Mark Russell was and continues to be the CEO. This tidbit actually appears in the article body itself. Milton was the Executive Chairman. Executive Chairman and CEO are not the same thing. Moral of this rant: If you're going to change the submission title, at least don't get it wrong!
codecamper 6y ago
i'm buying the dip this morning.
- hmate9 6y ago
  Sounds like a terrible decision. They have no product, no revenue. What exactly do they have?
  - codecamper 6y ago
    ... and I'm out of the trade for about an 8% gain.
hmate9 6y ago
For those that dont know, about a week ago a report came out that shed some light onto the incredibly shady things that were happening at Nikola: https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/ https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/ For example, they showed their truck Nikola One on video, which turned out to be them just rolling a truck down the hill and making it look like it was actually a functioning truck. Their defence against this allegation? "We never said the truck was moving under its own propulsion. We just said it was in motion."
omarforgotpwd 6y ago
This is likely related to sexual assault allegations that are emerging as well as the Hindenburg report. When his friend Jonathan Howard Robb started talking about it online, Trevor Milton had him arrested.
micael_dias 6y ago
I still think the funniest thing about this saga is that Trevor claimed the trucks ran on HTML5 supercomputers
- micael_dias 6y ago
  Source: https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-of-the-new-nikola-hydrogen-electric-truck https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-...
- nickik 6y ago
  The funniest thing when he after multiple failed companies and a company that had done nothing, claimed to 'out-Elon Elon'.
pxtail 6y ago
> But the Nikola truck is more than just a fuel cell vehicle; it’s a rolling super computer. One of the key elements of Nikola’s advanced system is the Bosch Vehicle Control Unit, which provides higher computing power for advanced functions while reducing the number of standalone units. "The entire infotainment system is a HTML 5 super computer," Milton said. "That's the standard language for computer programmers around the world, so using it let's us build our own chips. And HTML 5 is very secure. Every component is linked on the data network, all speaking the same language. It's not a bunch of separate systems that somehow still manage to communicate." https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-of-the-new-nikola-hydrogen-electric-truck https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-...
- krimpenrik 6y ago
  Wat a joke
- voldacar 6y ago
  he missed the opportunity to throw in "cloud" and "blockchain"
- DobryMorozov 6y ago
  He also said that he was partnering with soda stream to make soft drinks from the water emissions from hydrogen vehicles. This man is a billionaire
bob1029 6y ago
Potentially related to the GM investment? https://nikolamotor.com/press_releases/nikola-and-general-motors-form-strategic-partnership-94 https://nikolamotor.com/press_releases/nikola-and-general-mo... https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/08/general-motors-takes-2-billion-stake-electric-truck-startup-nikola/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/08/general-motors-takes-2-bil... Either GM made a $2bn mistake or they knew exactly what they were doing and everything is going according to plan...
- ucha 6y ago
  GM didn't pay $2B. They took a $2B stake in Nikola and agreed to be remunerated to manufacture their truck by using their electric battery tech which they were working on regardless of this deal.
  - bob1029 6y ago
    Who said GM paid anything? I was simply indicating the scale of their involvement.

50 points by heshiebee 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Might be related to the possible SEC investigation. I didn't have the patience to find out if the reason was hiding in this release. https://www.engadget.com/nikola-ev-short-selling-012546201.html https://www.engadget.com/nikola-ev-short-selling-012546201.h...

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Sounds like rats abandoning ship to me; he must've made a ton of money off of the IPO.

djrobstep 6y ago

I look forward to the day that Elon "one million robotaxis" Musk gets a similar level of scrutiny.

KiwiJohnno 6y ago
Musk definitely overpromises and doesn't deliver on time... But he usually does deliver what he said, just years late.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
agumonkey 6y ago
Musk left the vaporware club long ago. Not saying he's babbling a lot and may still be guilty of lying to investors in the future.. but right now the data says otherwise.
jp0d 6y ago
Come on mate. He is at least a proper engineer. He builds stuff himself. No project gets delivered exactly on the promised date. There is always a delay. That's normal. I'm a petrol head (read idiot) and I don't like Tesla cars. But I'm fascinated with engineering and I do appreciate Elon Musk. He is bloody awesome.
- djrobstep 6y ago
  - One million robotaxis - "Full self drive" - Neuralink - Solar roof (totally faked demo) It's all there if you look past the personality cult.
  - KiwiJohnno 6y ago
    - Founded three different multi-billion $ companies - Created market for practical, affordable electric cars - First successful car company listed on the stock exchange since Ford - Founded most valuable car company in the world - Made model S, model 3 which have 98% customer satisfaction - Produced cars on the cutting edge of automation technology (no, not really self-drive, but still market leading) - Has manufactured 800k + cars - First private company to launch a spacecraft into orbit and return it to earth - First (and only) company to carry humans into orbit and return to earth - Developed re-usable rockets - Developed and flew the first full-flow staged combustion engine. Is Musk perfect? No. But, he has achieved an amazing amount. Calling him a "fraud" or putting him in the same category as Trevor Milton is clearly dishonest. He is extremely polarizing, yes... And the cult around him is... Distasteful. But if you don't respect what he has achieved, then just what would it take?
  - jp0d 6y ago
    @djrobstep mate, be realistic and give credit where credit's due! @KiwiJohnno Nice one! :D
  - nickik 6y ago
    Robotaxi and Self Driving are basically the same thing. Yes, he is overly optimistic on that. What about Neuralink? Nobody ever said it was a product that you could buy. They are clearly working on it. What your issue? The Solar roof wasn't fake. They just realized they couldn't scale fast it and had to do more validation testing to prove that it could last 30 years. They are now delivering a pretty large numbers of them. He said in 2015 that they will deliver 500k vehicles in 2020 and it looks like they might hit that. That is an insane growth. The Shanghai factory has been a model vehicle manufacturing program. The Model Y was delivered perfectly on time. Berlin and Austin seem to be going great. There is absolutely nothing to complain about as a shareholder since they overestimated how fast they could scale Model 3, the execution the last 2 years has been brilliant. And we want even start talking about SpaceX one of the most amazing companies in the world. If at this point you still have an issue with Musk other then that you personally don't like him, its really a you problem.

PhantomGremlin 6y ago

Sigh. Currently this submission is titled: Nikola CEO Trevor Milton Resigns This title violates the HN guideline that says: please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. Okay, so lots of submissions violate that guideline. But in this case the changed title is simply wrong! Trevor Milton was NOT the CEO. Mark Russell was and continues to be the CEO. This tidbit actually appears in the article body itself. Milton was the Executive Chairman. Executive Chairman and CEO are not the same thing. Moral of this rant: If you're going to change the submission title, at least don't get it wrong!

codecamper 6y ago

i'm buying the dip this morning.

hmate9 6y ago
Sounds like a terrible decision. They have no product, no revenue. What exactly do they have?
- codecamper 6y ago
  ... and I'm out of the trade for about an 8% gain.

hmate9 6y ago

For those that dont know, about a week ago a report came out that shed some light onto the incredibly shady things that were happening at Nikola: https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/ https://hindenburgresearch.com/nikola/ For example, they showed their truck Nikola One on video, which turned out to be them just rolling a truck down the hill and making it look like it was actually a functioning truck. Their defence against this allegation? "We never said the truck was moving under its own propulsion. We just said it was in motion."

omarforgotpwd 6y ago

This is likely related to sexual assault allegations that are emerging as well as the Hindenburg report. When his friend Jonathan Howard Robb started talking about it online, Trevor Milton had him arrested.

micael_dias 6y ago

I still think the funniest thing about this saga is that Trevor claimed the trucks ran on HTML5 supercomputers

micael_dias 6y ago
Source: https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-of-the-new-nikola-hydrogen-electric-truck https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-...
nickik 6y ago
The funniest thing when he after multiple failed companies and a company that had done nothing, claimed to 'out-Elon Elon'.

pxtail 6y ago

> But the Nikola truck is more than just a fuel cell vehicle; it’s a rolling super computer. One of the key elements of Nikola’s advanced system is the Bosch Vehicle Control Unit, which provides higher computing power for advanced functions while reducing the number of standalone units. "The entire infotainment system is a HTML 5 super computer," Milton said. "That's the standard language for computer programmers around the world, so using it let's us build our own chips. And HTML 5 is very secure. Every component is linked on the data network, all speaking the same language. It's not a bunch of separate systems that somehow still manage to communicate." https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-of-the-new-nikola-hydrogen-electric-truck https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-...

krimpenrik 6y ago
Wat a joke
voldacar 6y ago
he missed the opportunity to throw in "cloud" and "blockchain"
DobryMorozov 6y ago
He also said that he was partnering with soda stream to make soft drinks from the water emissions from hydrogen vehicles. This man is a billionaire

bob1029 6y ago

Potentially related to the GM investment? https://nikolamotor.com/press_releases/nikola-and-general-motors-form-strategic-partnership-94 https://nikolamotor.com/press_releases/nikola-and-general-mo... https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/08/general-motors-takes-2-billion-stake-electric-truck-startup-nikola/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/08/general-motors-takes-2-bil... Either GM made a $2bn mistake or they knew exactly what they were doing and everything is going according to plan...

ucha 6y ago
GM didn't pay $2B. They took a $2B stake in Nikola and agreed to be remunerated to manufacture their truck by using their electric battery tech which they were working on regardless of this deal.
- bob1029 6y ago
  Who said GM paid anything? I was simply indicating the scale of their involvement.